The Resurfacing
by sherwhotreksings
Summary: The Doctor discovers something very important about Rose.
1. Chapter 1

Rose sits cross-legged on the jump seat watching the Doctor move around the controls. She pulls off her blue leather jacket the Tardis gave her and drapes it over the back of the chair. The Doctor decided to take her someplace fun to distract her, but she knows what today is; she hasn't forgotten that quickly. In earth years this would be the 4th anniversary of Bad Wolf.

"Roooooose, I think I got autopilot to work now!"

He had been trying to install an autopilot function in the Tardis, but she just wasn't taking it. He enters the coordinates and steps back. The Tardis shudders and Rose wills her to work, then she steadies out and Rose lets out a small breath.

"Yes!" the Doctor shouts and jumps up.

_Gosh I just want to snog him_, Rose thinks to herself. Sometimes she surprises herself with how much she admits in her mind. She really hopes she doesn't have a stupid look on her face and she blushes; if she didn't then, she does now.

He plops down next to her and rests his arm on the back of the jump seat. "Brilliant Rose, absolutely brilliant!"

He smiles at her and her stomach flip flops, but she doesn't smile back. This is her chance to talk about Bad Wolf, and about what happened. She isn't going to let him distract her, not on this day.

He frowns. "You realize don't you? You remember what today is... Bad Wolf day," he whispers those words quietly, almost reverently. No, very reverently.

Rose shivers at the words so barely mentioned. She nods slowly.

"We need to talk about that day. It has been four years since then and every time I bring it up, you avoid it or try to change the subject."

The Doctor shifts his eyes away from her; he's ready to bolt.

"Doctor…" She touches his arm gently with the tips of her fingers. "We need to talk. I need to talk."

Something in her voice makes him sit back. He slowly looks up at her, meeting her eyes hesitantly.

"What do you remember?"

"Nothing." A lie. "I opened the Tardis and that's when it gets fuzzy." Another lie. "What happened? Sometimes I have dreams. I can never remember them, only a lingering feeling." A partial lie. She does have dreams about that day, but she can remember them. First it was hard to remember them, but as time went on, bits and pieces returned. For the majority of her time as Bad Wolf she was aware of everything, but the Tardis blocked her memories.

The Doctor rubs the back of his neck. "You came back to me with the Tardis. The doors opened and you were standing there, radiating gold light. Your eyes, they were glowing gold." He closes his eyes, imagining it all over again. "You said something about bringing life and destroying. Bad Wolf."

They both remember exactly what she said; neither could ever forget. There's a moment of silence as they mentally repeat what she said to themselves.

"You destroyed all the Daleks, but the energy was burning you. It would've killed you." He opens his eyes and stares at her with an intensity powerful enough to convey how much he cares for her without saying the three words he can't ever get out. "I had to take it out of you. Of course I ended up killing myself, but I could regenerate and you couldn't."

He leaves it at that. He doesn't mention the kiss, he doesn't mention that she called him her Doctor; he doesn't mention how she would do anything for him. She nods her head and stands up to leave.

The Doctor finds her an hour later stretched out on the library couch and picking at a blanket. He sits down behind her and studies the back of her head. "You remember everything don't you?"

Her skull tingles with his stare and she twists to meet it. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure."

He pulls her against him in a makeshift hug, her back against his chest. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

She leans her head back as she gathers the courage to speak. "What would happen if you didn't take all the time energy out of me? What if some had stayed in?" She can feel his cheek brush her ear as he looks up at the ceiling.

"Wellllllllll, one of two things could happen. Your body would try to metabolize it, in which case," he gulps, "you would either die, or put it in some sort of stasis. As long as you didn't try to use the energy you would be fine. Of course it is possible Bad Wolf changed you. I've never heard of a human absorbing all of time before so I can't say for sure. Theoretically it would make you part Time Lord, but without knowing to what extent Bad Wolf would've changed you, I couldn't say how long you would last like that or whether it's even a stable condition."

She takes a breath and then blurts out what she really wanted to ask. "Why did you leave out the kiss?" She pushes herself up with her left hand and holds him away from her with her right one on his chest.

"I wasn't sure if… You might not have…" he struggles and then turns red.

"You should've just told me." She reaches up with the hand on his chest and runs it through his hair.

She moves her head closer to his until their mouths are almost touching. She brushes her nose on his. He closes the few centimeters between them and he tips her head back with a firm hand pressed to her neck. They both relax, but then her eyes turn gold. The Doctor can feel the time energy coursing through her. Her hair is floating around her head, straining upwards. Gold light streams out of every strand of hair and finger. He pulls back, breaking the kiss, worry written all over his face. Her hair drops, lifeless. Rose blinks and her eyes fade back to brown.


	2. Chapter 2

He stands up and starts pacing the room. "What just happened?"

"I was Bad Wolf again, wasn't I? I could feel it. I…" She slumps forward.

"Rose!" He rushes over to her, but she lifts up, like a puppet on a wire, fully emerged in gold.

With hair extended fully from the roots, energy shooting from her fingers, toes, eyes, hair, and just about everything else, she speaks.

"The Moment is coming. Soon you will have to decide, Doctor. Very soon. Choose carefully." Her back arches and she lowers gently to the floor.

The Doctor looks scared. "Rose…" he says slowly.

Her mouth opens and closes.

"What were you talking about?"

Her eyebrows scrunch together. "Do you ever count them?" she asks, then her eyes widen.

"…how do you know about that?" he asks quietly.

"I…I don't know. It just came out."

"Something is definitely wrong…" he hesitates, "…and I'm not sure if I can fix it."

She sits down on the floor. "But you'll try?"

He crouches next to her. "I'll try, I promise."

Rose scrunches her eyes and presses her hand to her forehead.

"Do you feel okay? Maybe we should get you to bed."

"Yeah. Yeah, that'd probably be a good idea."

The Doctor reaches his arm around her waist. His long, thin fingers span her rib cage and gentle pressure prods her to stand up with his assistance. Once she's standing, he has to bend over to keep his arm in place, which leaves his mouth and nose in the neck region. They take a few steps like this, but whether it be from concentrating on anything other than the Doctor's breath on her neck or from lack of strength, she stumbles and would've fallen over for sure if it hadn't been for him.

Without hesitation, he bends over even more and lifts her up, legs draped over his other arm. She fidgets with her hands, letting them first rest in her lap and then wrapping them around his neck. He takes an unnecessarily deep breath. The Tardis gratefully moves Rose's bedroom closer to the library so the Doctor would have less distance to travel, but truth be told, he would carry her up a mountain and down the other side if it meant she'd be safe in his arms.

She tries to stay as still as possible, but she's shaking. It's not like they haven't been in a situation where the Doctor needs to carry her; they have, but it's just so much for her right now. Everything feels heightened. Every touch, sound, smell, and thought, all amplified. She can hear his clipped breathing from carrying her and feel the tiny adjustments of his fingers against her body. She can smell the banana he ate on his breath, and the familiar scent of the Doctor - like books dipped in chocolate - threatens to overwhelm her. That's just it though: it all does. It's shrouded in foreboding and fear. She can't focus on one particular thing and it's causing her to shake.

He notices. Of course he notices.

He manages to open her door without putting her down, and walks over to her bed. He sets her feet down first by lowering her so that he ends up kneeling beside her while she uses his shoulder to steady herself. Her hand is shaking still, but at least when standing she has more control over her legs.

"Do you need me to help you change into your jim jams?" His eyes dart up to meet hers, only for a second, before lowering them shyly and looking nervously around the room.

Near death situations he can handle, but having to help Rose Tyler change clothes has him quaking in his shoes.

"I think I'll be fine in this for tonight. Let me just…" She reaches back with her free hand and tries to unclasp her bra. However, she is unable to do it with a single trembling hand. She sighs loudly with frustration. "Would you… um… help me with this?" She gestures to her back.

The Doctor gulps and nods his head. He helps her over to the bed and she braces herself with the bed post. His fingers slide beneath her shirt, the coolness of them making her flinch away. He whispers sorry before undoing the clasp. She carefully pulls the straps down and slides it off without falling over and then he helps her into bed.

"I'll see you in the morning." He shuts the door and the Tardis shuts the lights off.

It's one and a half hours of tinkering with things he fixed weeks ago, pacing around, and rereading books he's read 1,000 times already before he goes and checks in on Rose.

He slowly walks up to her bed, the Tardis bringing the lights up enough so he can see well. Careful to not wake her up, he brushes her hair away from her face. As he does, his fingers skim her forehead. All human skin feels warm to him, but even he can tell that this is abnormally hot for anyone. He runs to the infirmary and gets all the temperature lowering treatments and cream he can find and stuffs it all into his pockets.

Back in Rose's room, he sits down on the bed by her feet and sorts through all the medicine, making a pile of human acceptable drugs, Time Lord acceptable drugs, and drugs for both human and Time Lord. The pile for both is inadequately small. He picks up a cooling cream. It works best when applied to the wrists, forehead, and chest. He obviously isn't going to chance the chest application; what if she wakes up and freaks out? No, he won't do it. She doesn't wake up when he rubs it onto her wrists, and doesn't wake up when he puts some on her head either.

He nudges her softly on the arm. "Rose?" he whispers. "Rose, wake up."

She doesn't respond.

He puts his hands on her shoulders. He's shocked from the change in temperature in his hands. To go from cold to burning in a matter of seconds is quite a change. This can't be good.

"Rose!" He shakes her gently.

Still no response.

While being an exceptionally heavy sleeper, the Doctor doesn't recall her being this hard to wake up. He puts his face next to hers to see if he can feel her breathing, and he can.

He releases a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

Next he moves his ear down by her chest to hear her heart beat. It's very slow and very quiet, maybe 40 or 50 beats per minute. He counts to be sure. 45 beats.

"This is not good. This is very not good," he says out loud to himself.

He stands up and runs his fingers through his hair, ruffling it even more. It wouldn't be a good idea to move her to a hospital. Besides, what could they do for her? He has an idea of what to do, and he does know what might have to happen, but he couldn't do it. No, he takes that back. He could do it, he'll have to do it. Just wait a little longer to see if the cream works.


	3. Chapter 3

Her eyes start moving under her eyelids. He sits down in a chair by her bed. A half hour later he checks her temperature, but there's no improvement. He sits back down. He crosses and uncrosses his legs, picks at the fabric of the chair, counts the seconds between each rise and fall of her chest, and checks her temperature until he can't take it anymore. Then another idea pops into his head. He could try to take the energy out of her again like last time. It would cause him to regenerate if he could, but it might not even work. He presses his fingers against his eyes. That option is better than the ultimatum.

He kneels down by the bed and presses the tips of his fingers to her temple, ready in case things go bad. He presses his lips to hers, concentration hard on finding that small strand of energy left in her body. He finds it and pulls on it with his mind, but like a ball of yarn unraveling, but this string only leads to more. It could get dangerous very fast. He can't absorb all of this time energy in Rose. It's as if she's connected to the heart right now. He drops the connection and pulls back, letting his forehead rest against hers as he pushes into her mind.

Something tugs at his mind, something from Rose. It's trying desperately to get his attention. He lets it enter his mind. It's a memory or a vision. He can't tell if it's from the future or the past. He's standing there, with another man and… and previous him. They're standing around a box, around the Moment. If that's past him and present him, then the other man must be future him. Why are they all there and around the Moment? Where did they even find the Moment? Before he can think about it too much, the memory focuses in on present him. There's a sadness about him. He's lost Rose. So that's how it's going to be. He has to erase her memories and lose her forever then? How does Rose know this? The Big Red Button on the Moment raises. The hologram display analog flickers into his mind. Rose! It's Rose! She's there, but… but the him in the memory doesn't register her presence.

It clicks. She's there as Bad Wolf. He's accessing this memory, or he supposes it'd be more of a portal, through her, who is there as Bad Wolf. Relief spreads through him and he lets go of her mind. Which means he lets go of all that is happening right now. The only question left that's of any importance is, is that a future or past him? How much time does he have until she's gone? Or is it all a changed time stream from whatever the other versions of him did with the Moment? He stops everything when Rose gasps awake.

He pulls his fingers off her like he was burned, startled by her sudden movement. Just like that he forgets all he saw, everything except one thing; he's going to lose Rose, who has time vortex stuff still in her.

"Are you ok?" He helps her into sitting position.

She doesn't respond right away, just stares at the wall in front of her, trying to process what she just went through, but what was it exactly? She doesn't quite remember what she just saw, only a few lingering feelings and fleeting trivial details. The Doctor was there… or was he not? He had a peculiar mood about him, sadness, or longing… or had she just imagined it all? A few words drift into her mind.

"-hear me?"

She pushes it away but they just float right back in.

"-me to get you-"

Then she realizes it's the Doctor talking to her. She shakes her head to clear it.

"Sorry, what?"

"Do you want me to get you some tea?" He looks at her concernedly.

"No, no I'm good." She squints her eyes, trying to conjure up some of what she just saw. All she manages is a missing feeling like she forgot something and an image of a man she doesn't know on a planet she's never been. She closes her eyes. "Are you missing something too?"

"I think so… maybe it's best if it stays missing." He's afraid whatever it is will just ruin the time he has left with her.

"I keep seeing this man, I can't picture him well enough to describe him, but he acts like you did when you wore leather. And the planet he's on… it's orange."

He knows she's describing Gallifrey, how she knows that, however, he can't tell. His hearts constrict as he thinks about life without Rose. He has to savor every minute of her. He wants to get to know every different smell, taste, sound, and inch of her. Most of all her wants her to know how he feels.

"Rose Tyler, I have to tell you something…"


End file.
